Pre-fabricated shear walls are commonly used in commercial and residential structures as one method of transferring force, typically shear, a structure into the ground. Consequently, by using a pre-fabricated shear wall, the remaining structure does not have to be designed to carry the shear forces, and as such, lighter or less expensive materials may be used for the remaining structure. Thus, the use of relatively small engineered components to carry specific types of loading, such as pre-fabricated shear walls, helps to reduce the overall cost of the structure.
Historically, pre-fabricated shear walls are generally only used with structures that are slab-on-grade applications. This limited application scope prevents the benefits of a pre-fabricated shear walls from being used in applications where the structure is not a slab-on-grade application. A suitable example of one such application is residential housing where flooring structure, such as joists and sheathing, are built upon the concrete foundation The flooring structure simply interferes with standard pre-fabricated shear walls assemblies as they prevent the attachment of the pre-fabricated shear walls to the foundation. Consequently, the pre-fabricated shear wall simply can not transfer the shear load into the foundation. Attempts have been made to build kits that allow a pre-fabricated shear walls to be used in these non slab-on-grade applications, however, they have proved to be either ineffective or overly cumbersome in their use.